ACCME hires Singer to expand oversight, education

The Accreditation Council for CME (ACCME) is reorganizing one
of its departments to provide better monitoring of certified activities and to expand
education to members.

The office will be headed by Steve Singer, PhD, ACCME's new director
of education, monitoring and improvement. He is set to start Nov. 26.

By adding monitoring to its existing department of education
and improvement, the restructuring shows the agency is attempting to make good
on changes vowed in its oversight. ACCME chief executive Murray Kopelow, MD, in
a letter to the Senate Finance Committee earlier this year, indicated he was
considering adding “a monitoring system from which the ACCME could make
independent decisions about compliance with its requirements.”

Its details have yet to be ironed out. The department could implement
any of several measures conceived at a July board meeting, like placing trained
observers in audiences, taking advantage of direct reporting by learners, and
becoming the key source of information about compliance and providers for the
public. The board's next meeting is scheduled for Nov. 29.

Singer, formerly director of educational services at PeerPoint
Medical Education Institute, has served as faculty for several ACCME
accreditation and state provider workshops and may expand upon such programs in
his new role.

He will report to ACCME's deputy chief executive, Kate
Regnier, MA,
MBA, and will supervise a staff of four, including another new hire—Steve
Biddle, MEd, manager of systems education and improvement, who starts full-time
Jan. 1. The rest of the group is comprised of current staffers.

Mary Martin Lowe, PhD, formerly the director of
education and improvement, will assume the new role of director of accreditation
and recognition services, overseeing such processes as the updated
accreditation criteria.

It remains to be seen how effective ACCME's latest actions
will be. Senate staffers have not commented on whether any of the proposed
measures would be adequate to address their
concerns, spelled out in a report last April.